Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Putin May Soon Face a Greater Threat from the Left than from the Right, Kirillova Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, November 10 – Many
analysts and politicians have suggested that Russia is under great threat from
the extreme Russian nationalist right either because they genuinely believe it
or because it works to the advantage of Vladimir Putin who can thus present himself
to the world as less dangerous than those who might take his place.

But Russian nationalists, especially
in the wake of Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, are divided and generally
under the control of one or another parts of the power vertical. It is possible
they could escape that control and threaten the regime, but the likelihood of
that anytime soon seems relatively small.

One consequence of this focus on the
nationalist right, Kseniya Kirillova argues, is that most observers have
ignored what may be an even greater threat to the current powers that be in
Russia: one from the left powered by people who’ve not adapted well to
post-Soviet realities and are thus nostalgic for Soviet times (svoboda.org/content/article/27297269.html).

The Russian journalist who currently lives
in San Francisco says the threat she is talking about does not come from the
leadership of the KPRF, which remains quite loyal to the Kremlin, but rather “genuine
convinced supporters of the rebirth of ‘a red project,” most of whom are quite
young.

She points to three reasons for
the emergence of this group as a threat to Putin. First, many Russians are “sincerely
nostalgic for Soviet times” because then they received “a social package which
did not depend on their personal efforts, abilities and achievements” and
because they never fit in to a market economy.

Second, Kirillova continues, “the current
authorities have not offered [such people] a model of the future.” The Kremlin
has put out propaganda memes like “the Russian world” and “a special path of
development,” but its supporters haven’t given them much “specific content.”
Instead, they have idealized not the future but the past – and the past is the
Soviet Union.

Third, the Soviet past, as Sergey
Kara-Murza of the Center for the Study of Crisis Society, argues, “corresponds
to “the deep cultural code of Russians and thus ‘Soviet’ and ‘Russian’ are in
fact synonyms” in the minds of many. Others, like Vladimir Somov, have made
similar points.

And fourth, the Kremlin has promoted such
view of the Soviet system by “idealizing certain elements of the Soviet system
in order to exploit images of the past, for strengthening the authoritarian
political system and for justifying the growing ambitions of Vladimir Putin
personally.”

Pro-Putin propagandists have sought to
rehabilitate Stalin, the Cheka, and all those who in Soviet times sought to
identify and destroy enemies foreign and domestic. Indeed, Kirillova says, the
chief characteristics of the Soviet mentality have been revived with one
exception – there has been no move to restore communist ideology.

As the followers of Sergey Kurginyan who
are ready to come to Moscow with portraits of Stalin, any restoration of that
ideology could threaten the regime because of its appeals to social justice and
equality, two values at odds with those of Putin and his closest supporters in the
regime.

So far, Kirillova argues, Putin has been
able to operate without reviving those elements of the communist ideology by
his “creation of extreme conditions, unceasing wars, and suggestions that ‘Russia
is surrounded by enemies.” But those values too can lead people back to
communism:

“It is well known,” the Russian journalist
continues, “that authoritarian regimes operative on civic passivity while
totalitarian ones require the mobilization of the population. However, there is
an opposite dependence as well: constant mobilization of the population gives
rise to an increased demand for a totalitarian ideology.”

Putin asks Russians for sacrifice as did
communist ideology but he doesn’t provide the social justice components that
the communists offered even if they did not always supply.As the demands for the first increase, so too
are heard ever more often voices saying “corruption ‘in military times’ is ‘sabotage,
diversion, and treason.’”

“The longer [Moscow’s] aggressive foreign
policy in conjunction with the growth of repressions, the cult of Stalinism and
play on nostalgic attitudes continues,” she suggests, “the greater the
probability that an ever greater part of the population will begin to demand ‘genuine
socialism.’”

And she concludes: The constant suggestion
by the authorities that “’to win the war, [Russia] must be like the USSR’ can
turn against those who articulate that idea.”As the standard of living falls for most while the rich build ever
bigger palaces, social revolts could easily occur led “not by the liberals as
the authorities fear but under socialist banners.”